Switching between subjective and objective modes is the essence of the scientific modus operandi. Not many people seem to appreciate that. Science is all about riding two horses, maybe not in concert, but certainly alternately - and knowing when to switch from one to the other.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Here’s a screen grab of a posting I did nearly two years ago, suggesting that
the TS image may have been made with ‘invisible ink’ technology available in
the Middle Ages, notably the time span of the radiocarbon dating (1260-1390).

It just seems to me if Colin is as good a
scientist as he claims, he would already be beyond this kind of thing. What I
am thinking is his doing experiments and failing to provide measurements and
other objective data that other scientists and anyone else can review and
compare against their own experiments. This reminds me of what Walter McCrone
did with his ‘science.’

anoxie

October 30, 2012
at 6:12 am

Indeed, with a microscope Walter McCrone claimed it was a
painting, with a microscope will Colin Berry claim it is a scorching ?

Andy
Weiss :
This reminds me of what Walter McCrone did with his ‘science.’

Indeed, with a microscope Walter McCrone claimed
it was a painting, with a microscope will Colin Berry claim it is a scorching ?

Perhaps. Walter McCrone, God rest his soul, was
not a very good scientist.

Needless to say, science does not and cannot move in
straight lines to some predetermined goal, because there is no goal in
open-ended science. Science is about model-building and model testing. My
interest is in knowing how that image was made on the TS, given it’s been C-14
dated as 1260-1390(a result I’m happy
to accept, at least provisionally, pending re-testing, despite all the special
pleading re repair patches or invisible re-weaving, or transmutation of
elements by earthquake-derived radiation from the bowels of the earth etc etc).

So when I’m reminded of the “invisible ink” effect that can
be achieved with lemon juice and other organic fluids (even urine according to
Fleming's James Bond 007) where one’s invisible writing shows up after holding paper over a source of
heat, it’s not to suggest that the TS linen was first impregnated in lemon
juice. It’s to try and understand the chemistry of the ‘invisible ink’ effect and see whether or not that exercise in thermochemistry is applicable in some shape or form to developing a working
model of the superficial TS image.

Maybe the TS is not a contact scorch, in
which the colour resides in the topmost fibres of the fabric, representing
pyrolysed linen carbohydrates. Maybe the colour is due to an imported substance
that is highly heat sensitive, which yellows or browns on exposure to heat and
then attaches firmly to the linen fibres, making one think they are scorched
linen fibres when they are not. (Yes, there’s some resemblance here to the
ideas of STURP’sRaymond N.Rogers RIP
who envisaged a starch impurity coating, derived from 1st century
yarn-spinning and weaving practice that then served as a source of reducing
sugar for a Maillard browning reaction with putrefaction amines from a corpse.
But I’ve never bought into that model for a whole number of reasons discussed
previously, and it’s in any case not obvious how it’s routinely testable in terms of
producing the kind of sharp negative (and in some cases highly superficial)
images thataccompany this and my
previous postings these last 30+ monthsor so.

With that as introduction, I’ll now proceed to post the
results of my latest tests with lemon juice and three prospective candidate chemicals that may or
may not be responsible for its action (citric acid, glucose, sucrose).

One can save some time by ignoring what follows, if I tell you
now that I have been unable to simulate the invisible ink action of lemon juice
with those sugars and organic acid, singly or in combination, and am now
searching the literature for alternative candidates. Phenolics(flavanones etc) seem a promising class of
compounds, given that lemon juice blackens even when heated on glass (see my earlier posting). But has anyone ever linked those aromatics with the invisible ink effect, and
if not, can that link be established experimentally? If so, it might offer some
new lines of enquiry where continuing efforts to model the TS image are
concerned, whether or notthey are seen
as “scientific” in the shroudie community.

Late addition (beware, plot spoiler): there are pointers in the Maillard NEB (non-enzymatic browning) literature that the active ingredient t of lemon and other citrus fruits responsible for the darkening of those juices on storage and exposure to oxygen is ASCORBIC ACID (Vitamin C), or rather, breakdown products derived therefrom (threose and furfural have been mentioned as reactive aldehydes capable of reacting with amino groups in proteins, amino acids etc OR polymerising with themselves (furfural) to give brown melanoidin endproducts). Might this same chemistry be responsible for the invisible ink effect? It may well be, explaining why citrus fruits is so effective - it being a concentrated natural source of Vitamin C. More later.

Experimental data and photographic documentation to follow at intervals throughout the day.

You'll be seeing various notches cut into the linen strips in my photographs. They were used for identification purposes at the initial soaking/drying stages. The ballpoint pen labels were applied after, once the sample had been dried.

As before, I used my old friend, the aluminium pencil sharpener, as a template, after heating for a couple of minutes on the hob.

This is to remind readers of the potency of lemon juice as a thermo-sensitizing agent ("invisible ink"). The treated fabric on the right has been butted up against a control (treated with water only) and the heated template then pressed down along the boundary so as to imprint both simultaneously

That's the first 4 serial stampings you see, top to bottom, as the template cools.

Here you can see far end of the strip where the template has lost most of its heat and imprinting action. Note that it's then exclusive imprinting onto the lemon juice impregnated sample, the untreated control being totally unaffected, at least not visibly so.

Here's a comparison of lemon juice impregnation with that of pure citric acid.

Serial stamping as before, with the template cooling from left to right. Note that at the lower temperatures there is still a prominent scorch (or should that be 'scorch') with lemon, and scarcely any with citric acid.

Here's a comparison between lemon juice and sucrose (cane sugar) solution:(Ignore the half-images at the top - to avoid waste I used both edges of each linen strip)

Once again, the purified constituent (sugar) failed to reproduce the action of whole lemon juice, the effect being seen better when the template had cooled to temperatures lower than those required to scorch untreated linen.
But sucrose is a disaccharide, and lacks, say, the reducing properties of glucose, one of its two constituent sugars. So let's try glucose instead of sucrose,

Once again, the purified component is not working at the lower temperatures, going left to right.

In fact I see no difference between glucose and sucrose when compared one against the other:

Maybe we need to have the sugar and the citric acid pre-mixed together if we are to simulate the 'invisible ink' effect of lemon juice.

That's lemon-impregnated linen in the top half, and a mixture of glucose and citric acid underneath. (Who needs densitometric bar charts and numbered scales when one has the real thing?).

One of the most surprising results was to compare the "simulated" lemon juice (citric acid and glucose) against plain water. Surely those two constituents would "help" to produce a (pseudo) scorch on linen, compared with a water control.

Sorry about the difference in configurations: that's glucose/citric on the top half, water control underneath.

Amazing. there'a scarcely if any difference. Whatever it is in lemon juice that produces the 'invisible ink' effect on linen, it does not seem to be either of the major constituents that spring first to mind. But that's maybe not surprising, on reflection. There are lots of fruits that have both sugars and organic acids, so why is it generally lemon juice that is recommended? Might there be something else in lemon that is responsible for the invisible ink effect.

Here's what happens when one heats lemon juice in a Pyrex dish in an oven, with no further additions. The intensity of the colour change from pale yellow to treacly-looking brown or black is simply amazing.

Might I (and plenty of others) have been barking up the wrong tree in fingering acids (primarily) with the unspoken suggestion that acids are chemically or thermochemically etching the linen fibres to produce an enhanced 'scorching' effect. Who's to say that it's the linen fibres themselves that are chemically modified, at least at the lower temperatures?

I shall now be reporting the results of literature searches which, as indicated earlier, suggest that phenolics, not acids and sugars, may be the causative agent of the invisible ink effect.

Inks developed by heat

Some of these are organic substances that oxidize when heated, which
usually turns them brown. For this type of "heat fixed" ink, any acidic
fluid will work. The most secure way to use any of the following
substances for invisible ink is by dilution, usually with water, close
to the point when they become difficult to develop.

But there's no earthly reason why ester formation should produce a colour change. One can esterify ethanol with acetic (ethanoic) acid, but the resulting ester, ethyl acetate, is colorless, the same as the reactants.

Hey. Look what I've just come across (my red bolding):

History

Lemons

Lemons were originally developed as a cross between the lime and the citron
and are thought to have originated in China
or India,
having been cultivated in these regions for about 2,500 years. Their first
introduction to Europe was by Arabs who brought them to Spain
in the 11th century around the same time that they were introduced into Northern
Africa. The Crusaders, who found the fruit growing in Palestine,
are credited with bringing the lemon to other countries across Europe.
Like many other fruits and vegetables, lemons were brought to the Americas
by Christopher Columbus in his second voyage to the New World
in 1493, and have been grown in Florida
since the 16th century.
Lemons, like other vitamin-C rich fruits, were highly prized by the miners
and developers during the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century, since
they were used to protect against the development of scurvy. They were in such
demand that people were willing to pay up to $1 per lemon, a price that would
still be considered costly today and was extremely expensive back in 1849. The
major producers of lemons today are the United
States, Italy,
Spain, Greece,
Israel and Turkey.

"Other countries across Europe"? Like France for example? Like small villages tucked away in Champagne country south-east of Paris? Like, you know, that there Lirey, in the bishopric of Troyes, which is where the TS had its first documented appearance (and immediate public display!) in western Europe. Allez figurer, as the French don't say...

Might there be a specific Templar connection to be found that might link lemons and their introduction to northern Europe one wonders?

The Lord of Lirey immediately prior to the first showing (1355 approx) was Geoffroi de Charny, a highly regarded Crusader knight recently returned from the Middle East. Some say that despite the small spelling difference, he was the nephew of Geoffroi de Charney, Templar Preceptor of Normandy, who was burned at the stake in Paris alongside Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay in 1314.

It's the crusader connection that is of chief interest and possible relevance in the present lemony context, but some will know of my attempts to work the Knights Templar and their major personalities into the narrative, set out on my specialist Shroudie site.

For chemical buffs, see the wiki entry on flavonoids, which points out the difference between the class of compounds in the title (flavonoids) and the similarly named by subtly different flavanoids. While they both have the same 3 ring structure, the flavonoids have keto groups (-C=O) whereas the flavanoids have phenolic OH groups instead.

Hesperidin

Hesperidin
is a flavanone glycoside found abundantly in citrus fruits. Its
aglycone form is called hesperetin (the right half of the molecule shown). Its name is derived from the word
"hesperidium", the kind of fruit produced by citrus trees. from Wikipedia

A major flavanoid of citrus fruits is hesperedin (above) which is classed as a polyphenol. I now need to see if it goes brown or black on heating. If not, I'll need to search elsewhere for the secret of the invisible ink effect.

Casual aside:

Each time I pull a certain short-sleeved shirt out the wardrobe, I look at it ruefully, because I'm immediately reminded what I was doing a year or two ago when wearing it. I was helping clear a garden that got wild and overgrown with weeds - waist high thistles, nettles etc. I and my shirt got splattered with an assortment of plant juices from stems etc as we slashed our way through, and those spots and splashes are now permanently and indelibly present on that shirt, having resisted all attempts to wash them out. So there is a chemical interaction between textiles (cotton etc) and the assorted chemicals that plants make as a defence mechanism against grazing animals, insects, bacteria and fungi etc, all classified as non-nutrient secondary metabolites etc. I'm willing to bet that phenolics feature prominently in that list. Those chemicals probably bonded onto fabric without the need for a source of heat (though sunshine and first laundering in hot water may have helped). As stressed previously, we have to keep in mind three imprinting mechanism - thermal, chemical and thermochemical.

Afterthought: thinking of thermochemical reactions, one must not overlook the possibility of a conventional non-enzymatic browning, i.e. Maillard reaction, but one that is crucially different from that of Rogers, inasmuch as both the essential ingredients are provided by the lemon juice, and need only a temperature rise to react together.

Reminder: there has to be:

(a) a reducing sugar. It could be glucose or fructose, or possibly sucrose too if it were to split into glucose and fructose at raised temperature.

(b) a source of amino (-NH2) groups which can be provided as proteins, free amino acids or free amines.

It's going to take a while to get my head round all of the possible combinations, and decide what if any interventions a home-based experimentalist might make by way of distinguishing between one mechanism from another.

All the "Ask any question you like" sites I've been checking online (quite a few now) assume (a) it's either citric acid somehow "weakening" paper, rendering it more susceptible to heat and "burning" , OR (b) the acid itself is decomposing to carbon . All of them without exception confidently spout this mindless Mickey Mouse science without a shred of supporting evidence. Welcome to the internet-enabled modern world of casual misinformation.

I have one or two ideas up my sleeve for exploring the invisible ink phenomenon, and hopefully putting the explanation on a sounder chemical footing, but please don't expect results anytime soon.

Halleluja: Possible breakthrough in my literature search, having entered (lemon juice maillard) into Google: it's apparently all due to the breakdown of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) to a highly reactive sugar (threose) that then enters into Maillard browning reactions.

Threose
is a four-carbon monosaccharide or carbohydrate with molecular formula
C4H8O4. It has a terminal aldehyde group rather than a ketone in its
linear ...

Other papers propose that the degradation product of ascorbic acid giving rise to non-enyzymatic browning reactions is furfural (similar to threose in possessing a reducing aldehyde group, able to react with amino groups to form brown melanoidins OR able to polymerise). Here's a link (pdf) to just one paper (for now) from a Turkish group, making a case for furfural.

New addition: October 1st

So let's take stock, shall we? I began with the hypothesis that the TS image might have used 'invisible ink' chemistry (about which I could find nothing that looked in the least bit authoritative). But lemon juice is the agent most often recommended for invisible ink, and the major consituents that spring to mind are citric acid and sugar. But a mixture of those two failed to show an invisible ink effect in the experiments reported here (confounding most of the internet-wisdom re how lemon juice works). But I've now recalled that lemon and other citrus fruits are a rich source of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), and that there's a pre-existing literature that describes how breakdown products of ascorbic acid, notably the 4 carbon aldose sugar threose, can react with amino groups of lemon (in proteins, amino acids etc), and probably added amino groups as well, to produce Maillard, non-enzymatic browning products. The latter are known collectively as melanoidins, and are formed by a series of complex polymerisation reactions.

If what I read is true, as I've no doubt it is, then the relevant mixture for modelling the action of lemon juice is NOT citric acid and reducing sugar. It's ascorbic acid and a source of amino-groups, maybe proteins, amino acids etc with the vital addition of THERMAL ENERGY.That's heat in plain common English, as can be supplied by bringing up a hot piece of metal template (good for producing a negative image!!!).

I'm at my pied-à-terre in the south of France right now, and separated from my 'scorching kit'. But it might just be possible to lay my hands on some Vitamin C at the pharmacists and some protein (egg white?) and see if an intense brown colour is produced on heating. If it can, then a whole new rethink will be needed re the likely provenance of the TS image, assuming (rightly or wrongly) that the radiocarbon dating is broadly correct (as I'm inclined to think it is).

I've posted nothing new there since March of this year. Despite that, and thanks mainly to search engines, the site still delivers typically some 25-30 clicks each day (38 on each of the last two full days, and the same 38 today, early evening).

No one particular posting dominates over there (unlike this site where my CO2 thoughts- see sidebar- routinely account for some 65% of daily visits). So, one post about suffocating gas (prior to diffusion and mixing) on this 'ere Blogger-hosted site gets all the attention, while a portfolio of some 250 posts on another type of suffocating gas (shroudological pseudo-science) over on WordPress has its work cut out to stand out from internet chatter, but is managing - just- to keep its head above water. It's a funny old world.

Thursday October 2: things are looking up. Here's a page from a book in which it's claimed that it's ascorbic acid, not citric acid, which is the active ingredient in lemon where invisible writing is concerned.

Click to enlarge

...

The book's title page

Cautionary note: the passage assumes that the brown colour is due simply to the charred residues of organic compounds, with the implicit assumption that ascorbic acid decomposes to brown products more readily than citric acid. There is no mention of Maillard browning products, which not only requires a reducing sugar or some other reactive aldehyde functional group (-CHO) to be present but additionally a source of amino groups, e.g. free amino acids or proteins providing -NH2. Elsewhere I have seen lysine mentioned as a target in proteins - explainable by the fact that lysine residues in proteins carry a free terminal -NH2 group on the amino acid side chain that is not in polypeptide linkage. So in that sense a lysine-containing protein probably behaves as if it were free lysine.

OK, so let's harden up on the working hypothesis (it being hypotheses that lead to new lines of enquiry, new experimental directions, so valuable if only to prevent stagnation (and heaven knows there's enough of that in Shroudology as a quick glance at conference programmes amply demonstrates).

Something extraordinary must have happened in the run up to 1355 and the first public showing of the TS in Lirey, an object that no one had seen or heard of previously, at least where written authenticated records are concerned (vague allusions, or minuscule artistic details on obscure manuscripts are another matter).

I believe that when lemons were introduced to northern Europe by returning Crusader knights, there was much novelty value centred around what one could do with them. Someone discovered they could be used to create an invisible image on paper (and linen) which could be developed, i.e. made visible by heat. Someone else was casting around for a technology that could be used to simulate a sweat imprint that would be of whole body size and thus trump the Veil of Veronica (face only) as a 'tourist' attraction.

The realization of the potential to created the TS using invisible ink technology required advanced thinking (for its time), commercial acumen, and a realization that there could only be ONE TS, and that the method of its fabrication had to remain a closely-guarded secret.

Testable? Potentially, yes, if the chemical building blocks of the image - let's say ascorbic acid and amino-groups - were both derived from external agents, and NOT from linen constituents themselves. That would leave a chemical signature, one that could be deciphered by modern micro-analytical techniques.

Friday October 3

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I've got the chemistry right, i.e. that the TS image was created by a binary mix of lemon juice (or some other source of active aldehyde) and protein (or some other source of amino acids), and that elevated temperature was required to produce a Maillard non-enzymatic browning reaction.

What about the technology? How might the chemistry have been achieved while at the same time imprinting the negative image of a man that is both exceedingly superficial and which responds well to modern 3D-rendering software (e.g. ImageJ)?

What follows is pure speculation, but one has to start somewhere.

Let's imagine first that the sheet of linen was impregnated with a protein solution of some kind. It may have been something as simple and unsophisticated as milk that was painted on, or maybe egg white in water. That would have first been left to dry to form a thin surface skin.

One then drapes that linen over a human subject, living or maybe dead, with the protein coating facing outwards (other geometries are not excluded). One then takes lemons and cuts them in half to use directly as 'dabbers'. Alternatively (and more probably) the juice is squeezed from lemons, and applied with a sponge or swab of cloth. One then dabs with the juice over the subjects contours, so as to capture that all important negative image (I'm fairly convinced that a template was used, and see no reason why that template should not have been a real person (after Garlaschelli) in place of the metal effigy that has been assumed for modelling purposes thus far). One then heats the linen, maybe by holding it over hot charcoal, or possibly in an oven if there's one big enough. The ascorbic acid reacts with the protein at the places where the dabbing coincided with the subject's 3D relief, and at no other points. After baking, one has the image captured in the form of medium to dark brown melanoidins, i.e. Maillard products, but there will be a faint yellow background from non-assisted thermal degradation of the protein too.

The superficiality was assured through use of a protein solution that was first allowed to dry and form a protective skin over the linen fibres. So what Rogers conjectured as a starch impurity coating was in my model a protein coating that provided the amino (-NH2) groups for the Maillard reaction. Putrefaction amines were not needed in the protein/lemon juice model.

So, there you have it, in a few short paragraphs - the Invisible Ink model - post-STURP Maillard reaction Mk2, one in which a corpse was non-obligatory - a marriage of science and medieval technology.

Interestingly, the model described allows for a 'blood before image' modus operandi Or at any rate, blood could be applied after the protein, but before the lemon juice. The latter could react with blood proteins of course, but that might be scarcely visible if only a superficial layer on top of much thicker blood..

Here's a link to a blog which also attributes the invisible ink effect of lemon to its ascorbic acid content, and throws in the protein-enhancing effect for good measure (well done that man).

What came as a surprise was his claim that milk alone works better than lemon juice! However, that may only be true for certain ranges of temperature. Where modelling of the TS image is concerned, one is looking for the best effect at the LOWEST temperature.

Update: 20:00, Friday

Have just this minute confirmed the above result, using milk impregnation v ascorbic acid (+ other things) from the local pharmacist!

The so-called invisible ink trick is not restricted to lemon juice, and indeed a number of recipes recommend milk per se.

What I did was either impregnate linen with milk, then hang out to dry, or paint milk on with a brush, and then dry. Either way the linen became almost board-like, and took a more intense image than the similarly ascorbic-acid treated control (> conc. than lemon juice) which was best seen with serial imprinting, as above, when the template has cooled down to temperatures below that needed to scorch untreated linen.

Mechanism with milk? One can but speculate, but as before one suspects it's a Maillard reaction. Milk contains 'milk sugar' i.e. lactose, which is a discaccharide comprising two sugars, glucose and galactose. It also contains a lot of protein, needless to say (caseins etc). On being heated, all that's needed is for the lactose to split into its two constituent monosaccharide sugars, both reducing, and for those sugars then to
form brown Maillard reaction products with the proteins.

Here's something for the chemistry buffs. (It points out, correctly I think, that lactose is a reducing sugar without having to be split into monosaccharides, so can react directly with proteins, targeting the lysine reside side-chain amino groups mentioned earlier. It's sucrose that is the non-reducing disaccharide):

Milk is usually subjected to heat treatment to ensure
microbiological safety before retail and consumption. There are three types of
heat treatment; (1) low temperature long time (LTLT) pasteurization, (2) high
temperature short time (HTST) pasteurization, and (3) ultra-high temperature
(UHT) treatment. In all types of heat treatment, the Maillard reaction occurs
in milk.

The Maillard reaction (nonenzymatic glycation) is a chemical
reaction between amino group and carbonyl group; it is the extremely complex
reaction that usually takes place during food processing or storage. In the
case of milk, lactose reacts with the free amino acid side chains of milk proteins
(mainly ε-amino group of lysine residue) to proceed to early, intermediate, and
advanced stages of Maillard reaction and forms enormous kinds of Maillard
reaction products. The reactions of lactose and milk proteins have been
frequently investigated and the formations of various Maillard reaction
products in milk during heat treatment have been demonstrated .
In the general Maillard reaction, firstly an Amadori product is generated, and
it progresses to the 3-deoxyosone or 1-deoxyosone route depending on the
reaction pH. In the case of the Maillard reaction of disaccharides such as
lactose, there is a third reaction route. It is the 4-deoxyosone route. A main
carbohydrate in milk is lactose. Thus, the Maillard reaction in milk progresses
via the above described three routes. Finally, the Maillard reaction results in
the formation of melanoidins (browning compounds).

Saturday October 4

So, one has at least two different types of invisible ink systems that one can play with, neither depending on the linen* itself to supply a thing, and in that respect, and that respect only, comparable to Rogers' Maillard hypothesis.

The two types? There's the milk system, which on the face of it is the simpler of the two, given that both ingredients of the Maillard reaction are provided, i.e. reducing sugar and protein amino- functions.

Then there's the lemon juice/protein system, which might be called binary, inasmuch as there are separate added reactants, analogous to binary chemical weapons, one providing the reducing compound, i.e reducing sugars such as threose derived from breakdown of ascorbic acid. and, additionally, proteins which may be in short supply or of the wrong type in lemon, thus requirng a supplementation from milk or other source of protein.

While the binary system looks more complex, it may if the truth be told be the preferred one for modelling a TS-like image. Why? Because it gives one superior control over where the image is to appear, and over the characteristics of that image (thickness, colour intensity etc.)

Saturday 10:20

There was one short waspish comment yesterday on shroudstory.com's (otherwise favourable ) coverage of this posting, to the effect that I was ignoring temperature in my "30 months" of modelling. Knowing the individual concerned (one of the usual suspects re trolling propensity), the intended meaning was this: the TS image was formed at low temperature- not any kind of heat scorch- and until or unless I produce coloration and images at low, presumably environmental temperatures relevant to a recently-deceased corpse in a rock tomb, then anything I present that has required elevated temperatures is totally irrelevant, and indeed, for the Madame in question, a source of deliberate provocation.

Later in the day I may add a few home truths here regarding the alleged "low-temperature" provenance of the TS image. There will be references to circular arguments, and expression of some deep misgivings as to whether certain folk know the difference between heat and temperature. I may feel the need to deploy my favourite analogy, namely the Finnish sauna.

"What price the reliability of the TS C-14 dating?" is the inevitable take-away message.

Humbug. The half life of C-14 is about 5,730 years. The timber residues tested (as charcoal) are an estimated 30,000+ years old. That's some 5 half -lives, so one's attempting to isolate and measure just 1/32 of the C-14 atoms that are present in new wood. It's simply not fair to compare an artefact that is at most 2000 years old (while almost certainly less than 600) with material that has been under the ground for at least 10 -13 times longer.

11:50 Have just checked back with the site. Someone else agrees with me.

The
chronology of long Upper Pleistocene loess sequences in Eurasia is
based on combined pedostratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of
high-quality charcoal. The accuracy of such a chronology depends on the
reproducibility and precision of the 14C dates. However, certain dates
may show discrepancies with regard to their chronostratigraphic context
based on series of coherent dates. […]

One cannot compare the dating of the Shroud with the dating of a 30,000 years old wood remain.

The
chronology of long Upper Pleistocene loess sequences in Eurasia is
based on combined pedostratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of
high-quality charcoal. The accuracy of such a chronology depends on the
reproducibility and precision of the 14C dates. However, certain dates
may show discrepancies with regard to their chronostratigraphic context
based on series of coherent dates. […]

In
a nutshell, the ancient wood dated to 30000 years, plus or minus 3%.
The shroud dated to 1300 years, plus or minus 4%. That’s how reliable
radiocarbon dating is. The paper was not written in disappointment at
how inaccurate radiocarbon is, but as research into making an accurate
and reliable dating method even more so.

(Moi: couldn't have put it better myself - and didn't).

13:15

As I was saying earlier, the wonderful thing about a binary Maillard system is not just the science that generates a brown coloration, simply and reliably (acknowledging that sufficient heat is needed to raise the temperature locally at the site of reaction) but its versatility. Recalling that this present line of enquiry (depositional Maillard chemistry instead of linen fibre pyrolysis) was prompted by talk of the TS image having been painted on, with subsequent flaking-off to leave a ghost image, might our binary Maillard provide the wherewithal to reproduce such a scenario?

The thing with painting is that the "paint" must be good and stiff, so as to scarcely wet the surface fibres, while providing a target and anchorage point for the second ingredient. Even if the first formed Maillard product is a heavy encrustation, who's to say that most but not all does not then detach, with or without some encouragement, to leave a 'pale shadow' of its former glory?

Thinks: a viscous component that can participate in a Maillard reaction... Why not try egg white for starters. Either paint or stencil an image onto linen with egg white, let it dry, then apply some lemon juice (or ascorbic acid), or maybe the latter is not needed. Then,, when everything is bone dry, or maybe still slightly moist, go over with a heated flat iron (or modern electric iron). What kind of image is formed? Can it easily detach, or even be washed out to leave a 'ghost'? How does it look under the microscope?

I may have a go at doing this soon, and will report the results here.14:00I mentioned a day or two ago the problems I've been ahving with Planet Microsoft re their attempts to improve security (I'll spare you the details dear reader, except to say that MS has its excelled itself in clunky don't work procedures, and tries to deal with problems via automated Q/A software).For those of you who have been communicating with me via my (initially) French dbmail address (subsequently absorbed into the MS Death Star), then the new address is sciencebod01 ( insert the at sign ) aol.com. Saturday October 4 15:13 (local time, S. of France)
OK, so I've just this minute done that experiment planned earlier, using an electric iron to bring up colour of Maillard reaction products.

First, let me stress that what you see is NOT a valid model. Why not? Because there's been soaking through and coloration on the opposite side of the linen (not shown). But what this experiment does do is to flag up the potential for creating an image on cloth via a temperature-rise effect that is NOT sufficient in itself to scorch linen per se, noted before, but which CAN produce browning reactions in biological extracts (protein especially, with ascorbic acid becoming less and less interesting). Mechanism? Maillard reactions? Caramelisation? Pyrolysis? Who knows?

Methinks there's a long and stony road ahead. Maybe I need to focus more on milk, and put egg white and ascorbic acid and lemon juice (especially) on the back burner. But if this Mk2 Maillard approach leads to an answer to the world's "most studied object", then why expect an easy path? Who said science was ever easy? I'd rather try reading the mind of medieval artifact-fabricators than that of Planet Microsoft software designers.

I know your stance and I agree. I think many sindonists have an
exceedingly broad insight on what an expert is. I have discussed this
point in my blog in several entries.

This blogger's private thoughts (except here on his own site):

Agreed. There is no such thing as an expert in the field of
sindonology (or shroudology as I prefer to call it. We are all beginners. Some
begin better than others. The TS is a test of our ability to separate the
wishful thinking that comes with appealing imagery from that of cold hard reality. Sadly
there is no part of the human mind that is devoted to detecting CHR. The human
mind is programmed to respond on a more immediate like/dislike response to what
it sees. It's part and parcel of the human condition to instantly add layers of
fancy to what cunningly or otherwise seduces, or attempts to seduce the eye.

October 5, !7:41

Oh dear. It's not often I go back on my word, but here I am, in my HOLIDAY apartment in France, and I'm going to have to do so. I said a while ago that it would take me till October 10, doing 20 pages a day, to go through Adrie Van Der Hoeven's pdf, all 243 pages of it:

Well, I've tried Believe me I've tried. But it's not just the length (which some might consider somewhat excessive when the aim is to fly a hypothetical kite, in this instance to assert/maintain that many disparate features of the bloodstains on the TS are explainable if one supposes that the linen had been pre-treated with a madder-derived dye, and that it had mordanted, i.e.cemented a union, with oxidized blood). There's a wealth of supporting argument, indeed a positive cornucopia. But it's the sheer density of detail - chemical, spectroscopic etc etc- that has been inflicted upon and overwhelmed this senescent brain that puts me in mind of what my naturalized US brother, a retired Army major, on being shown around St.George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, memorably described as " awesome, but sensory overload".

I do have an opinion on the central hypothesis, based not on what I have read, but on what I don't recall having read. But the task of going back through 243 pages to make absolutely sure I have not missed something when one is ON HOLIDAY (yes, even grandparents need an occasional break) is simply too much.

Sorry Adrie. Impressive. Truly impressive. But somewhat OTT if you don't mind me saying ("over the top"). It's like having one's latest Amazon purchase delivered to one's door in a juggernaut, all to itself.

It's maybe time to close this posting. I shall continue to potter around, testing various aspects of my scorching model, modified now to include Maillard reactions. Preliminary findings with additives to linen like milk, flour, egg white etc are interesting, but best I keep them under wraps until some kind of firm conclusions are possible.

No more postings for a few more days at least (am off to central France shortly to look up old friends).

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About Me

Colin Berry, aka sciencebod, is a retired PhD researcher/teacher/academic who has worked in industry, medical schools, schools, food and biomedical research (mainly in the UK, but also in W.Africa and the United States). He's best known for his work on RESISTANT STARCH, recently described as "the trendiest form of dietary fibre".
See also his specialist Shroud of Turin blog on www.shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com
with over 200 postings to date.

Create one's own blog (age, class, gender no barrier)

It's really quite straightforward. All one has to do is to click on the photograph with that nice young man. One can then be part of the frightfully interesting Blogger community in just a couple of jiffs.

Acknowledgment

What's the latest on the LHC?

LHC gets warning system upgrade : BBC 28 September 2009

Self-organization

From wiki entry on SELF ORGANIZATION: "As a result, processes considered part of thermodynamically open systems, such as biological processes that are constantly receiving, transforming and dissipating chemical energy (and even the earth itself which is constantly receiving and dissipating solar energy), can and do exhibit properties of self organization far from thermodynamic equilibrium."

How far away should your off-licence be for a bottle of wine to be energy-neutral?

What do these two have in common?

Answer: both arrived in this world about the same time. Sir Isaac Newton was born on 4th Jan 1643 (new style*). The Taj Mahal had a 20 year gestation period, centred on approximately the same year. Click on piccy for an older post .* Or Christmas Day, 1642, depending which dating system one uses.

Is interstellar space travel feasible?

The nearest star (more correctly, star system, since it's 3 stars, a binary and a smaller satellite star) is Alpha Centauri. The average distance from Earth is 4.3 light years. Suppose technology allows us one day to achieve an interstellar cruising speed of half the speed of light. A comfortable acceleration of g (simulating Earth's gravity) would take a year, with another year to slow down comfortably. The entire journey from Earth would take a minimum of 10 years approximately. Having arrived at one's destination, it would take 4.3 years to send a radio postcard (" Hello Mum and Dad. Have arrived safely, and am now looking for a habitable planet. Am hoping it's hiding behind Proxima. Have looked everywhere else... Would die for some Cheddar cheese... ")

Watch this space

It's a cheap and cheerful form of transcendental meditation.(experimenting with settings, actually)

What causes weather?

Could you answer that question in just 7 words, ie " weather is due to...? Need some help, " Weather is due to t- - u - - - - - - h - - - - - - o - t - - E- - - -'s s - - - - - - ." The National Curriculum (England and Wales) does have its uses, but there are many more such simple principles, expressed in a minimum of words, that could be usefully incorporated.

"Had there been a Beginning (there wasn't, as it happens), there would initially have been complete Nothingness. But just as Nature abhors a vacuum, it's totally gutted at the thought of Nothingness. I mean to say - how far does Nothingness extend, assuming it has one of more dimensions? It can't extend for an infinite distance, since that would be a physical impossibility. Nothingness, to avoid having infinite reach, coils up on itself to acquire finite dimensions. In so doing, it becomes Somethingness, which has a spring-like potential energy - the total energy in fact of the Universe.

From that potential energy, present in what we now call space, or space-time, which is anything but empty, is spawned all sub-atomic particles - both matter and antimatter. When those particles collide, they mutually annihilate to create photons.

The reverse can also happen under extreme conditions - two photons can collide to create matter and anti-matter. It is potential energy in the spring-coiled Universe that is our "Dark Energy. It may or may not have mass depending on conditions.

A moment when it has no mass is the instant of the Big Bang. Let me briefly explain. An oscillating universe switches between Big Bang and Big Crunch. With the latter gravitation pulls everything into a super blackhole which then becomes a singularity - a massively dense point in space-time.

What prevents it becoming infinitely small - a physical impossibility? Answer: friction. As the sub-atomic plasma contracts and grinds, heat is generated which cannot escape - being a black hole. The temperature rises, ie particles in the plasma move faster and faster. When they reach their maximum velocity - the speed of light- all particles are suddenly transformed into photons, which as we know have no true mass(at least, no rest mass: any mass they have is purely relativistic due to their speed).

Once the entire Universe is a super-concentration of photons, all the gravitational forces in the singularity collapse to zero, or nearly so, and the entire thing blows apart - a new Big Bang, to create yet another cycle (inflation, Big Crunch, implosion etc). The Big Bang creates not just sub-atomic particles - from photon-photon collisions, but space-time itself. To reiterate: that space-time is always suffused with the stored potential energy of our curled-up dimensions (Dark Energy)."